Check out Gary and Lynn Clarke. The Los Alamos mountaineers site has a list of "classic climbs in North America", which I think was an offshoot of the 50 classics. It looks as if Lynn and Gary have climbed most of these routes too. Awesome site for beta and inspiration. http://lamountaineers.org/...other/misc/index.htm

Climbing all 50 classics would take a skill set that few climbers these days posses. So many folks specialize in one aspect of climbing and do not have the rounded skill set to be solid at Aid, Alpine and free climbing. additionaly you have to be stealth to snag Shiprock....

Climbing all 50 classics would take a skill set that few climbers these days posses. So many folks specialize in one aspect of climbing and do not have the rounded skill set to be solid at Aid, Alpine and free climbing. additionaly you have to be stealth to snag Shiprock....

It would be an impressive accomplishment INMOP

Few?????? You gotta get out and meet climbers more often. I know a lot that after doing a 5.13 finger crack, can crank out off widths and then do pretty hard ice climbs and can slog mountains with the best of them. Their out their,.... except you don't see them in the rags much, and you definately don't hear about them.....

Few?????? You gotta get out and meet climbers more often. I know a lot that after doing a 5.13 finger crack, can crank out off widths and then do pretty hard ice climbs and can slog mountains with the best of them. Their out their,.... except you don't see them in the rags much, and you definately don't hear about them.....

Chas is right, there are some badass peoplel out there slaying it up old school, then going to work during the week. No magazines, no endorsements, just a love of adventure and exploration. These are my favorite climbers.

That being said..I wish BD would get back to me about attempt to climbe High E 50 times on one day. I want some sponsorship!!

It's still and pretty wide range skill set. and many who are solid ice and rock climbers are not aid climbers. Many aid climbers have no intrest in hard free climbing and its even harder (at my age) to find someone with healty knees to slog up all those mountains ;) It would be an amazeing accomplishment and cost a considerable ammount of $$$

Climbing all 50 classics would take a skill set that few climbers these days posses. So many folks specialize in one aspect of climbing and do not have the rounded skill set to be solid at Aid, Alpine and free climbing. additionaly you have to be stealth to snag Shiprock....

It would be an impressive accomplishment INMOP

Few?????? You gotta get out and meet climbers more often. I know a lot that after doing a 5.13 finger crack, can crank out off widths and then do pretty hard ice climbs and can slog mountains with the best of them. Their out their,.... except you don't see them in the rags much, and you definately don't hear about them.....

I think you underestimate or are unfamiliar with how hard climbs like the Hummingbird Ridge are. I've climbed some wimpy Alaskan routes, and it's an entirely different world up there.

Few?????? You gotta get out and meet climbers more often. I know a lot that after doing a 5.13 finger crack, can crank out off widths and then do pretty hard ice climbs and can slog mountains with the best of them. Their out their,.... except you don't see them in the rags much, and you definately don't hear about them.....

I understand Hummingbird Ridge. If you noticed in posts previously I said that its a bad M#$F#$%er since its killed quite a few individuals. Middle Triple was also quite a feat in the day it was done since its been done so rarely since then.

All I am saying is that if you think that todays climbers are a bunch of specialist prima dona's then you don't know todays climbers. Look at Josh Wharton, he'll go climb sport at Rifle, crank out hard routes in the Black Canyon, ice climb M9, and then go put up hard FA's in Pakistan. And he may be good but there is a good contingent of young climbers in hot pursuit or surpassing him, such as Kennedy, Stanhope, Haley. I'm just saying, give these guys credit.

I will and have, given the guys of yesterday credit (doing hard-ass routes with the heavy gear they had, without Gore-Tex, with Double Leather Boots (My first pair, and man were they heavy). They were hard-asses. But the people on the forefront today are also, even though they get no press in the climbing rags.

I don't read the climbing rags. I will stick to my guns on this one. It would be a damn rare find to hook up with someone who could do all these climbs. It would be an amazeing accomplishment. It would also involve a lot of travel and missed work!I wouldn't be anal about exactly which climb you do as long as its of simeler or harder dificulty on the same formation. For instance I did not do Durrance crack but did a 5.9 to the summit of Devils so it counts as a tic for me...

Seems to me the biggest obstacle is the hard alpine stuff up in Alaska. I know enough guys that can climb 5.10 or 5.11 and aid A3, but I don't know anyone personally that could climb all the Alaskan stuff. The group of people who can climb the Nose is pretty big. The group of people who can climb Middle Triple is pretty small.

There are definitely guys who can do all of them. Some of them have been named in this thread, and there are others. I think the biggest reason those guys haven't is lack of interest in many of the objectives. I doubt fellas like Wharton and Haley are interested in climbing the W ridge of Forbidden Peak or Liberty Ridge on Rainier.....with unlimited time maybe they would, but no one has unlimited climbing time, unfortunately.

I suspect that and lack of finances are the biggest reasons no one has done it yet, along with the aforementioned small group of people capable of all the big Alaskan climbs.